Thursday, October 11, 2012

Before the VP debates: My assessment of how it will go

Remember the first Presidential debate? President Obama was put into a state of shock by the abrupt policy changes Mitt Romney decided to take effect immediately as of that debate night. The President failed to call Romney on these and because of that, led some uniformed voters to see Romney's enthusiastic lies as facts. Even though the Republican Campaign Committee has taken much of what he said back, the President has paid for his failure to respond to Romney's claims by loss of support in the polls.

It appears that Romney's exaggerated policy changes were just another move in this "chess game" for the Presidency. Being so far behind in the polls and having had so much bad press about his actions, words and deeds in this campaign, my guess is that Romney's campaign decided that they had nothing to lose and everything to gain by lying to voters to soften Romney's conservative views and improve his appeal to undecided voters. After all, you have to win the Presidency first before you can carry out your actual policies.

Ryan

Biden

Tonight Vice President Biden and Congressman Ryan are debating each other. I have to cite some of the differences that I think will make the first VP debate more honest and a better read of actual stances of the two contestants that voters can use to compare them.

Even though they are offensive to many voters, Paul Ryan believes that his policies are correct. Having a somewhat slanted view of reality based on his faith in Ayn Rand's teachings, Ryan strongly believes in survival of the fittest. Bill Clinton has aptly named this the "you're on your own" policy. This belief system leads to such Ryan policies as removing the social safety net from the least fortunate Americans by cutting budgets for those services. It leads to his desire to change social security into a privatized business. It leads to Ryan's policies to reduce Medicare to a voucher system. At the same time, Ayn Rands anti-Christian dog-eat-dog teachings taught Ryan that the most fit and powerful should receive the entitlements in society. This leads to his policies of reducing taxes on the very rich without consideration for how the shortfall in tax revenue will be made up, even if it means that the less fortunate will pay or lose out for it. Ryan will not run away from those beliefs. Unlike President Obama's debate, there will be no surprises for Vice President Biden.

Ayn Rand

Vice President Biden will have an excellent opportunity to show middle class Americans that Ryan-Romney policies will hurt them. I believe he will enthusiastically cite specific examples of their differences.

Vice President Biden should reassure Americans that the Democratic Party is the Party of the middle- class while emphasizing that Republicans are the Party of the wealthy. He should expose the Republicans' true stance on social issues, women's issues, tax plans, jobs plan and military spending and the effects those will have on people and on the deficit. He should never let any of Ryan's debate attacks stand un-returned. If he can do those things he should revive the support of America back to President Obama.

This debate means a lot and could turn the tide of popular opinion back to Obama. Perhaps you don't agree but I believe President Obama should get a huge bounce in the polls because of Vice President Biden's victory this night.